$1 million donation will transform Orlando Library into digital playground

A $1 million donation in the memory of Orlando civic leader Dorothy Lumley Melrose will transform the Orlando Public Library into one of the most avant-garde in the nation, officials said before the Monday evening announcement.

"My mother did a lot of things in this community, but she had the greatest passion and talked the most about the library," said Kendrick Melrose, 72, a former Boone High School graduate who left Orlando to earn his fortune as CEO of Toro, makers of turf and landscape maintenance equipment.

"And I thought, 'Well, a million dollars is a nice round number.' "

It's also the largest single donation ever made to the Orange County Library System and comes at a particularly helpful time. Shrinking property-tax revenues have cut the institution's budget from $36.5 million four years ago to $27.3 million today.

"I feel like I've found a four-leaf clover and rabbit's foot and winning lottery ticket — all in one," said Mary Anne Hodel, the library system's director and CEO. "This is going to be a great thing for the community."

The gift will be used to create The Dorothy Lumley Melrose Center for Technology, Innovation & Creativity on the second floor of the main library in downtown Orlando. It will house labs for visual arts and filming, digital media, graphic design and audio engineering.

Library officials also are applying for a grant to build an adjoining fabrication lab that will allow library users to do a range of projects from three-dimensional modeling to jewelry-making.

"As far as we know, no other library in the country will have this range of capabilities," said Hodel, who has pushed to make the Orange County system more tech-savvy during her 10-year tenure. "This is very cool, very edgy."

Orange County Mayor Teresa Jacobs, who spoke at a special announcement of the donation Monday evening, called it "a great day for Orange County."

The library's second floor now features public-use computers, DVDs, CDs, audio books and Braille. Already, printed books have been cleared out of the remaining space to make way for the construction. Hodel expects to begin taking bids in the coming weeks and hopes the project can be completed within a year.

The notion of a digital arts center was part of a wish list the library had shelved until the economy improves. Then Melrose contacted Hodel, wanting to do something that would memorialize his mother.

"This just seemed providential," Melrose said. "I was visiting Disney with my grandchildren and they wanted to see where I grew up, so I took them downtown."

He was pointing out the house near Lake Cherokee where he'd grown up when the current homeowner came out to see what they wanted. He found out neighbors still call the place "the Melrose house," a comment that sparked his desire to ensure a legacy — not for himself, but for the woman who taught him the value of giving back to the community.

Dorothy Lumley Melrose — who graduated with honors and a degree in chemistry from the University of Illinois — was a lifelong proponent of learning. She helped raise money to rebuild what is now the Orlando Public Library, taught at Memorial Middle School and later in life became the first female stockbroker in the city. She wrote for several publications, including Reader's Digest and the national financial magazine Barron's.

She died in 1980 at age 81 and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery with her late husband, Henry, who fought in World War I in the Army Air Corps and World War II in the Marines.

"Both of my parents used to tell me that the purpose of life is to serve others," Kendrick Melrose said. "My dad's way of serving was in the military. My mother's way of serving was in Orlando."

Melrose's own career has been about service in a different way. A graduate of Princeton University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he helped reverse the fortunes of Toro, which was on the verge of bankruptcy when he took over in 1981, by emphasizing customer service and empowering employees. That business philosophy led to the creation of his current company, Leading by Serving, and frequent speaking engagements on the merits of a values-based corporate culture.

"I think if my mother could be here today," Melrose said, "she would be speechless — and she was a speech teacher. She would be beaming."